Sabretooth Gotta Hunt, Birdy Gotta Fly
by Lucky's Girl
Summary: A fearsome Sabretooth and a captured Birdy, what can become of two complete opposites? Can they find a way to survive each other long enough to help themselves and each other? Find out in this collection of one-shots! They'll either be about Birdy or Sabertooth, but everything will be centered around the two together. Birdy/Victor, because there isn't enough of them! Enjoy!
1. The Real Trouble: The Expectations

Author's Note\- A random one-shot for Victor Creed and Birdy! I love this couple especially because of Creed'sGalBirdy whose stories are amazing for this couple! So definitely go check out their stories if you like Victor and Birdy! I may add more one-shots if I come up with them, but no promises!

 _The title is based off this quote-_

 _"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;_

 _Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'_

 _Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;_

 _Man got to tell himself he understand."_

― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

* * *

They were in some ritzy hotel hosting an event. Ritzy... and also _gorgeous_. Everything was trimmed in gold, the room was enormous. The chandelier itself was bigger than the room she grew up in. Even the furniture looked more like art than something to sit on. They sadly weren't here for the scenery though. Some important guy was going to have a **really** bad night later...

For now they had to blend in and sit back. Observe. Or stalk, if you used her Boss' selection of words.

Birdy preferred not to.

She'd been excited about this, actually. Usually it was gory and depressing being dragged on his jobs. But this time! He threw some extra cash at her and told her to get him a suit and herself a nice dress.

Well, safe to say Birdy took advantage of that 'order' and got decked to the nine's. A nice dress indeed. A full length red gown, fit her snugly, and the gems adorning the low cut back sealed the deal when she'd tried it on. The little black shawl was sheer and matched her favorite handbag. If there was one thing she loved, it was any opportunity to get dressed up. She did a decent job on Victor too.

He looked very respectable. She even got him to wear a red shirt under his suit jacket that complimented her dress! Not that he cared very much the way he shrugged at it. Birdy wouldn't expect him to though. That didn't mean he didn't _look_ nice to her. Even from across the room, sitting back at a table that was the furthest from the space with various couples dancing. He never was a fan of crowds, she'd guess it was that sensitive hearing of his. Or it just bored him. One or the other. She'd even sitting with him until a moment ago, when she excuses herself for some punch and he waved her off.

The appeal of the evening didn't last long though. They got here and Victor occupied a seat immediately, waiting out the job. It didn't take long for Birdy to grow bored of drawing tic tac toe boards on her napkin's wrapper (a fancy place if the napkin had a napkin) and forcing one word answers from him with pointless chatter.

It wasn't any different than usual on jobs... Birdy shouldn't really be disappointed. Just the idea of a fancy ball benefit and whatnot, her imagination ran away with her. It usually did, that was the start of most of her troubles.

This gaggle of gossip airheads weren't helping her mood.

 _'George told me all about that colleague of his, it's hardly a surprise.'_

 _'As if she doesn't know what she is to a man like that. Who knows what brought her here.'_

 _'How embarrassing for her.'_

Birdy wanted to be angry at the whispers. She wasn't trying to pick up on their thoughts. But when they were thinking about you _and_ you happened to be a telepath that tended to happen.

She tried to block them out, they were just stuck up snobs with their shallow, high class viewpoints on the world. Her boss' reputation extended to the hire class as much as any of the dives he might enter. He didn't try to hide what he was either, even in a place like this.

The rational reasons didn't stop Birdy's shoulders from dropping a bit, the confidence she'd been radiating dressed to the nines wavered a bit. It wasn't in herself, it was the stupid vision she'd built up in her head when Victor told her to buy a fancy dress for a ball he was forced into.

Or maybe her false ideas about there being anything that wasn't strictly, deal with Victor's demons and blood-lust when he couldn't handle it anymore, handle all his paperwork and banking slips, or go buy groceries or be forced to eat what _Victor Creed_ thought was edible.

Plus those woman's thoughts were just too laced with venom. Birdy gave her drink a sour look, too bad it was actually just punch. She could use a little something harder to get through the rest of the night...

xXx

He'd pushed up out of his seat on instinct. He was more than ready to go over to the gaggle of uppity losers sipping their champagne and teach them a lesson for sneering at what belonged to him.

Victor wasn't a fool, it didn't even take heightened senses to see their dismissive looks and sneers **at** Birdy.

Victor Creed wasn't having **nobody** treat Birdy like that but him!

Even if this idea to teach them right was not something he was known for, and certainly not something he'd ever do for someone else. Or for himself for that matter, it wasn't part of what he was. He definitely wasn't doing it for some broad.

It wasn't about the frail, not to do with her having gotten all dressed up for this shindig. It definitely wasn't about the pout pressed on her plush lips, or the way she kept avoiding everyone's looks.

Nah, not about Birdy. It was about his reputation. Yeah. Birdy was here with him, and that reflected on him. Might as well be aimed at him. Victor Creed was superior at any damn thing. These little pee-ons couldn't match him. No one got away with disrespecting him.

But, Victor did recognize; somewhere in his sliver of rational thoughts, that gutting the guests wouldn't let him get close to the guy that would meet his end later tonight. So he'd have to prove it the regular, less fun, way.

So instead he slipped up behind Birdy and clasped a gloved hand around her wrist. He had to resettle his grip not to break her girly jewelry.

He smirked sharply as Birdy jumped out of her skin.

"Jesus Christ Boss!" Birdy gasped all breathy. He could hear her heart hammering away, so he knew he's actually gotten her. He wasn't surprised.

"Scare ya, did I?" Victor grinned nastily down at the blonde. That was his thing after all. But the scent of fear didn't wash over her. Too bad... she was no fun, took too much to rile her up these days.

Instead of letting her have time to answer with something smartass he promptly dragged Birdy away from the crap smelling punch table. Away from the broads whose eyebrows had raised and were 'whispering' bullshit.

"Er, not that I'm asking, but... we need to stay til that guy shows up right?"

Victor rolled his eyes at his assistant.

"Shut up, frail, I don' need no reminders on my job," Victor said, a bit of a growl in his voice. Just 'cause nobody was gonna insult her didn't mean she could start questioning him about his work. They weren't leaving anyways.

"In this sort of place?" Birdy scoffed.

Yeah, so it wasn't a place Victor Creed would be caught usually. Dressed up in a suit no less. It had a nice benefit at least, Birdy looked mighty fine in that dress. She smelled of some perfume, though, which he didn't favor to her natural scent. At least he could bare it, unlike most of the other guests. The men included, if you could call then men. One of the hundreds of reasons he couldn't stand places like this.

It didn't matter. He was here for his work, nothing else. Sides, now he wanted to prove it to Birdy as much as he did any other insignificant chump in this place.

No one questioned him. Sometimes Birdy could, on paperwork or something unimportant, but not right now.

xXx

He stopped before he'd dragged them to the door, so her original thought, that the perp left or he decided he was done and they were leaving, was out. She'd been fine leaving, it had interrupted the laughter from those woman. Also their thoughts, applauding themselves on how clever they were.

Bimbo's.

Birdy glanced around as Victor stopped completely, and turned around to face her. What was his plan here exactly?

He grabbed her waist suddenly, pulling her close. Her heart shot into her throat. and scanned the room again. This was a job! He was supposed to be scoping out Mr. High Profile accountant man.

Instead... as a jazzier song started up...

Birdy had to get tugged around for a second by the man, frozen in shock.

Were they... dancing? Honest to God dancing?

Yup. No doubt about it. His feet were moving, and so were hers, and around everyone else joining in to the upbeat song.

 _"Love was changing the minds of pretenders, while chasing the clouds away..."_

Victor Creed... The oh so fearsome Sabertooth (as he liked to remind her often), on his job to take out some Wall Street guy causing a fuss, the original stick in the mud, was dancing... with her! Also dancing at all.

 _"A we danced in the night... remember..."_

Finally Birdy got enough sense in her to start moving herself, following the fast pace he set for them.

"I didn't know you could dance like this," She said flabbergasted. Birdy earned herself a snort from the seven foot feral as he spun her around.

He was really frickin good at dancing, actually. He was giving her a run for her money as she tried to keep up with his tempo. What else was he holding out on her! She'd think since she'd had to deal with some of his deepest, or repress, thoughts and memories she'd know it all. That's what she got for expecting Victor wasn't some in control of what she saw of him.

As Victor swept her around, she distantly heard the surprised scattered thoughts of those woman, but the man in front of her soon consumed her attention entirely.

"There's plenty ya don' know Birdy."

That one almost didn't sound like an insult. She smiled wider at him as he dipped her backwards and pulled her back closer, twisting them around as the chorus of the song picked up.

 _"Aaahhh... say do you remember... dancing in September, never was a cloudy day..."_

"Sides this song is plenty older 'n you." Victor chucked deeply. She could feel the rumble as he pulled her against his chest and spun them around.

"I like the oldies," She shot back. Victor didn't say anything to that, just extended his arm and twirled her out a minute later.

Birdy got lost in the song, following his lead. For a minute... her world seemed so completely normal.

For a minute Victor was just a man and she was just a woman, both dancing closely.

It ended much sooner than she'd have liked. But she laughed as the song finished and he not so slyly smirked at the staring gaggle of girls. Well. Victor sure showed them, so did she. Suddenly they didn't want to be such nosy nellies anymore.

Birdy couldn't help thinking she deserved this from him. Victor took Birdy's arm and lead her slowly back over to the refreshments.

Birdy was still in a haze, but happy for a drink after the dance. When Victor Creed did something, nobody could say he didn't go all the way. Mostly that was a bad, horrible thing. It was nice right now.

"Now," Victor's voice was serious and dark as it ever was, pulling her from her happy haze. Did the guy show up? Victor slipped around her, leaning in closely. "When I'm done havin' my fun with this guy, if ya ain't by that exit I showed ya with the car in exactly forty-five minutes ya better get as good a head start as ya can manage runnin' from me," He growled menacingly for added measure, one pointed fang slipping from behind his lip. Then Victor disappeared behind her off into the hallways that lead deeper into the building.

Birdy sighed after him, taking a slow sip of her punch. She had forty-five minutes to kill apparently.

One day Victor would figure out that she wasn't going to try and escape. Even if she wanted to, he was the best tracker she'd ever met. Gauging the amount of zero's on his paychecks plenty of people thought so too.

Right now? She didn't feel the need in any case. Birdy glanced over at those ladies, smiled brightly and raised her glass at them.

It was a damn **good** thing Victor didn't understand that it wasn't his claws and death threats that were the real danger to Birdy. It was these rare moments when he showed her the man he could be. That's what was her real trouble lately...

* * *

Thanks for Reading!


	2. All those Zeroes

Author's Note- This is a short little one, but I thought it was a fun idea of Birdy's reason to show up and attack Sabretooth!

* * *

She nodded over the boring details they were filling her in on. They didn't have to worry about it, most people didn't, but apparently they felt obligated to warn anyone they hired before giving them the first half of their payment.

Apparently a lot of people had tried before this.

They were wasting their time though, she'd already checked into it. That's why she showed up. She never did without looking into the hit first. The only way her conscious could stomach all this killing was to see that they were horrible, completely irredeemable people beforehand. It didn't open up a lot of opportunities for her, and it didn't pay the bills well… but it was all she could do in the business she'd found herself in.

Her fingers slipped through the files, eyes scanning over them again. She had a lot of qualms with what she did, maybe not as many as she should have by many people's viewpoints, but she would say she had more than most mercenaries she met.

But this guy here? He was making the job easy. There was a trail of death, terror, and terrorism that was just begging to have someone wipe him off the face of the planet. He was one of those mutants out there giving people like her a bad name.

Going where ever he pleased and killing anyone that was in his way. Apparently he was part of a terrorist attack not too long ago and these guys had told her that he was a mercenary as well.

So the world couldn't have handed her a bigger jackass to save the world from.

"We think you'll have an advantage."

"What's that?" She could use an advantage against this guy, well any additional ones besides her powers. She only took on people as dangerous as this guy because no matter how big or bad you were, one powerful mental blast from her and he was as good as gone.

It was easy to finish people off after they were knocked out. She never went as far as to try and kill them mentally, though she'd thought out the ways how many times. One well placed aneurysm and bang. Not that she did that for work…. she'd found out about that as a teenager accidentally. It wasn't a comfortable feeling to be honest… telepathy kept you too connected.

Fortunately she was very good with big guns.

"Speaking bluntly, you're a woman," She couldn't help but scoff at them. That was beyond blunt. Usual she appreciated no bullshit, but really? Come on. "We don't expect him to see you as a threat right away like the others, then you can get close enough to take him out."

"How about you let me worry about how I take care of this guy," She said dryly. What a bunch of jerks, so she could only do this job better because she was a girl and the guy wouldn't think twice?

Oh, it didn't matter to her. What mattered were the massive… _crazy_ amount of zeroes attached to this pay check. Whoever this guy was, he'd sure made a lot of enemies while trampling around murdering and being a terrorist and everything.

She'd be able to quit this horrible occupation for good! Go retire somewhere warm with lots of strip malls and salons, then she could focus on getting something normal to do with her time. She accepted their terms and grabbed down payment.

"Bring it on, Sabertooth," She said to herself, picking up her gun from the table and turning out of the room.


	3. What's the Harm in a Little Peek?

Author's Note\- This was a prompt for something I wrote on a site forever ago, but I added to it because it was much easier than writing out the tough chapter for Lost Brothers. But we get sorta-kinda fluff instead, so! I call it a win-win. It's still Sabretooth right? Right. That's what I'm going with, but it turned out to be a fun one-shot anyways. Thanks for reading, please review!

* * *

She looked thoughtfully at the broad back of the brooding mutant. Thoughts she knew she shouldn't be having… dangerous thoughts. Being curious was, in Birdy's opinion, a byproduct of being a psychic. Constantly having the _option_ to know people's thoughts or opinions at the moment was like selecting the forbidden apple from the enticing tree branch. She knew she **shouldn't** do it… but it was hard to help herself.

Right now was one of those times it was hard to help herself. Usually it was surface thoughts, fluttering but passing, tempting her. Now… after using her powers the way she did, Birdy realized there was an entire new **level** she could access.

Memories.

Memories, reasons, motivations, the entirety of someone's life. Of someone's personality, of their very soul if one thought of it in a way. If experiences and decisions made up the person… she could see into someone's soul… it was a heady idea. Seductive… but dangerous.

Particularly with the easy to anger man lounging in his chair, half asleep, half listening to something on the radio. It was incredibly invasive, rude, maybe even immoral… but so tempting.

The man was so closed off, and when she had to go into his mind for him… all she came across were blurs, racing images she needed to quickly sort out and put away neatly. There was no real time to focus on those thoughts or memories…

Birdy wanted time for that. She wanted to know if she was **right** , that there was something redeemable about the terror that was Victor Creed. She saw glimpses, and Birdy found herself craving more.

She wanted to know more about what made him tick, what made him the way he was… what **really** motivated him.

Victor said many things, comments to write something off came easily to him. Clearly he was good at degrading people, it had to be second nature to him. But Birdy was beginning to be able to suspect he didn't mean some of the things he said. Not his threats, he _meant_ those, a fool could tell that, but it was the little things he said. Things he must think nobody paid attention to.

Birdy paid attention. It wasn't like there was anybody else around to pay attention to, anyways, and she got more curious each time she took a trip into his mind.

They were ploys, a shield of uncaring Victor threw out to protect himself… but Birdy really wanted to know what he _thought_ of her. He acted so cold, and then sometimes he acted peculiar with her. He'd let her slide on certain things she knew was pushing it, or he'd do something she could _almost_ call thoughtful if she didn't know it was Victor. It left her confused for sure.

Was it so wrong, or beyond her, to want to take the quick route through the immovable shield's he had around him?

Plus, he was half asleep, he might not even be able to tell if she slipped in his mind. Rooted around… how could she pass up such tempting circumstances? What was life if you didn't do stupid shit every now and again?

Birdy took in a deep breath, summoning as much energy as she could. She couldn't stand sitting around and thinking about it anymore! Birdy slowly eased her powers into his mind, in the hard to find routes she usually blew through to calm Victor's mind.

 _He moved with silent ease across the room from where he'd found himself paused in the doorway. Victor wasn't_ checking _on_ _ **her**_ _so much as checking that his property didn't find itself slipping out of his home, he told himself. His security system had no discrimination, it'd fry him if he tried passing through it without de-arming it._

 _Of course, unlike Victor, the frail he was keeping wouldn't get back up from it with just a few aches. So when he couldn't hear her making no noises he slipped past the room he'd given her, make sure still heard her within it. He hadn't been able to pick up her breathing right away, so he opened the door just to check._

 _Somehow, watching her slow, tiny breaths drew him further into the room. His dark eyes capturing the small movements of her chest rising and falling underneath the thin comforter. Now Victor was hovering over the bed, looking down at the tiny blonde. For someone with such a loud mouth Birdy sure slept quiet._

 _Victor suddenly crouched down near the bed, hovering over her face, inspecting it. She wasn't hard on the eyes, he knew that, but catching her still wasn't something he'd done before. The girl seemed so defenseless. Not that she had any real defenses against him. He could slice her throat open or squeeze the life from her, or anyone, with no real difficulty._

 _Victor wondered if she knew that as thoroughly as she should._

 _The girl seemed calmer around him recently. Victor simply assumed she'd submitted to the facts that she was his possession now, and that she had no other choice than to calm his mind and his rage for him. She'd sure been surprised that he left her to herself besides that. Victor smirked to himself, yeah, so he could be a gentleman when he wanted to be._

 _He let Birdy believe what she liked, but Victor needed her to fix his head, and didn't want to risk her lack of cooperation if he did anything else to her._

 _Eventually the girl nosed her way around his business work, feigning boredom._

'Well if you're going to force me to be here you're obligated to at **least** give me some real work to do.' Birdy yammered, slapping both hands on his desk and leaning in over it. It took a minute for him to stop being distracted by her rack to listen to her demands.

'Yeah, think so do ya?' Victor leaned back in his chair, sliding his head back to appraise her further.

'I do, and I'll have you know, Mister Creed, that you'll have to pay me for my services too.'

He barked out a laugh, but it didn't stop her from nodding her head quickly.

'Yah, we'll see bout that frail.'

'I'm not cheap either, Boss,'

 _Victor had liked the sound of 'Boss', so he let her have her way. Besides, if it kept her placated and she kept giving him that Glow, he didn't really give a shit._

 _Victor assumed the work was because she wanted to find a way out. Whatever reason, Victor let her do his paperwork for him, he hated it, and didn't do it. But it was more productive this way, and she had a good sense for the business from her own experience it turned out._

 _Victor didn't know what to call it, but Birdy seemed to act differently lately. Maybe it was from working with him, though working with Victor Creed should do the opposite of relax someone. It should remind them how easily he could make it them instead of the target._

 _Yet.. Birdy became more forthcoming lately. More daring… which Victor found amusing at the same time it was irritating. He didn't understand why that was. Her behavior had no reason to change. The little thing was a mystery to him…._

 _Victor's reflective dark eyes took in the angles of her face, he could see well, even in the dimly lit room. The moon wasn't full, but it still peeked through the heavy curtains put up over the windows. He didn't need much light to see things by. She was all angles and hard lines, but she still had a bit of meat around her cheeks and her nose seemed much too small for her face. Her hair was usually up, but it was spilled over her shoulders and had fallen across her eyes into her bangs._

 _His arm raised up over the bed without him thinking to do so, and a claw reached out to slowly push the strands of bright blonde back from her eyes. Victor didn't want to wake her and alert her to his presence, so he didn't run his finger across her skin like he was tempted too._

 _Instead he leaned back on his haunches and continued to study her. From her tiny breathes to her flickering eyes behind her eyelids. He wondered what smart-mouthed, bold mercenary frails dreamed of. Better than his he'd wager._

 _Birdy wasn't so bad, despite her mouth, and he couldn't say that for many people. Being around anyone for too long ended with his claws in some part of them. People annoyed him inherently, and Victor was a man with a short temper and he left no room for nonsense._

 _She was nothing but_ _ **nonsense**_ _, but he found that with each week her yammering raised his hackles less. Her idiotic quirks became more amusing, and he couldn't know why. Maybe it was because she was getting less tense herself, or that Birdy was the type to make herself at home even when she shouldn't. But she squirreled around in his head so much, he allowed it._

 _Still…. he couldn't quite understand it._

The images passed over her, and it wasn't quite like being in Victor's shoes, so much as passing over his thoughts on it. But suddenly the view of her bedroom from Victor's enhanced senses, all the little things he remembered picking up, the view of herself sleeping (why did her hair have to look **so** terrible when she let it down anyways?), Victor perched silently over her, were replaced with a big black void. She felt a terrible pressure in her head and surprisingly found herself being thrown out of the allusion.

"Get **outta** my head, Birdy," The sudden loud growl into the silent room nearly threw Birdy out of the chair she was perched on. The anger in the tone practically dripped from the loud noise. "Try it 'gain without my say so an' I'll teach ya a lesson ya _won' soon ferget._ "

Victor's dark eyes locked onto hers and Birdy could see the threat was very real. Sometimes he blustered, or said things as a shield… and then sometimes Victor meant every single word he said. It was easy to tell the difference, because when he was truly serious; like now, the hairs on the back of her neck raised and her stomach tightened in alarm at the ferocious look in her employers face.

It was just **savage** summed up in a look that was entirely Sabretooth, with none of the wiggle room she could poke at with Victor. It said to do what he wanted or risk finding out how it actual felt to have him treating her like he did other people.

"Yes sir, Boss," Birdy spit out, still surprised he'd caught her. She looked quickly away from his eyes, her own wide as she scurried out of the room too.

Her cheeks were flushed red…. but as embarrassed as she felt… Birdy didn't feel _that_ bad about it the further she got away from a pissed off Sabretooth. She'd barely brushed her fingertips across the strange thoughts, but it had been refreshing to know he cared more than he admitted….


	4. The Urban Myth

Author's Note\- I don't normally like to write OC's at all, so I wouldn't expect a bunch of these with their kid or anything unless someone wants me to, but this one came to me because of some Victor angst and couldn't be done without a child… so it had to be done! Thanks for Reading!

* * *

"Mama! Mama!" A little voice rung out amongst the silence of their home.

Birdy looked over her shoulder, a smile wiping the concentrating crease from between the eyebrows. Her little padded footsteps grew louder and she burst into the study noisily.

Her little girl ran towards her frantically, her short blonde pigtails bobbing up and down. She had more energy than her father did, which was a **miracle** in itself. Victor's energy was ceaseless, _she'd_ know.

Thankfully Lizzie made more noise, it was much easier to keep track of her. Victor could be standing behind her for hours and if it weren't for her telepathy she'd never know. He still got her if she was concentrating on something, and lord knew she tried. Victor loved sneaking up on her and scaring the begeezus out of her. It was pretty innocent compared to the other things he liked doing.

"Mama!" Elizabeth cried out again, this time she heard a little panic in her little girls voice. Birdy turned around to give the little girl her attention.

"What's wrong baby?" She cooed, wrapping her arms around the little girl as she pushed herself against Birdy's middle.

A long sniff later, Elizabeth pulled her head up from Birdy's stomach. Birdy rubbed circles over her back, trying to soothe her.

"My... My tooth," Her big eyes blinked up at her, blurred by the water forming under her eyelids. "I was eatin' a-a apple an it got stuck an' I ruined my mouth now." Birdy looked at where Elizabeth was frantically pointing at her mouth and jutting her head forward.

Birdy blinked and then let out a tiny giggle. Elizabeth gave her a hurt look, eyes blinking more rapidly as she fought off the tears.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Lizzie," She knelt down and wrapped her hand around the little girls shoulder. "You didn't ruin anything, baby. That's supposed to happen!"

Her eyes snapped up to Birdy's face and studied her.

"Like how?" She asked quizzically, eyeing Birdy's smile suspiciously.

"When you're little-"

"I'm **not** little!" Elizabeth interrupted suddenly.

"I know," She reassured quickly. She was a big girl like daddy was. She grinned down at the girl and then kept going with a new word. "But when you're growing up big and strong, you get new teeth too!"

Her eyebrows popped up, mouth dropping into a little 'o'. "New _**teeth**?!_ "

"Yeah," Birdy chuckled, grabbing the girls hand and bringing her over to the fire place. "Up we go," She sang, picking the girl up and holding her so she could see in the mirror over the hearth.

"Yer not as tall as Papa," The little girl pointed out. Birdy laughed at that.

"No one's as tall as your Daddy," She chuckled, turning and pointing at the mirror to focus her. "Look at your tooth now, see how it wiggles?" Elizabeth peered forward, baring her teeth comedically and poking at the tooth in question. The tooth next to her incisor.

"When you get it out, a new one will grow in and the tooth fairy will come!"

"Who?" Elizabeth asked.

"The tooth fairy comes when good kids lose their teeth and tuck them under their pillows! She replaces them with a gold coin and uses them for fairy dust!"

"Wow!" Elizabeth laughed, bouncing excitedly now. Birdy giggled again, she didn't know who was more excited. Elizabeth for getting to learn about the tooth fairy, or that Birdy got to watch her and have her child experience all the fun little things kids were supposed to that Birdy missed out on as a kid.

"Come on! Let's go get your tooth loose!" Birdy chimed, setting the little girl down and letting her hop off towards the door.

"Yeah! I'm gonna get Papa! He says he's the best at takin' things out!"

Birdy smacked her forehead even as Lizzie raced from the room, singing about the tooth fairy. Yeah... the tooth fairy was sadly not what he'd meant by 'taking things out'. She'd told him to watch what he said around her, but did he listen to her?

Nooo, he knew juuuust what he was doing, of course.

Birdy turned and folded up her letter she'd been working on, sticking it in the back of the drawer. If there was something Victor hated it was paperwork so she wasn't worried about him finding it.

She closed the draw and turned to run after her daughter, wondering what other sort of traditions she might not know about that she should learn. She remembered kids in the foster home talking about it, from before they were there too. Or the few of them that would visit after being adopted.

When she caught up the girl had already found her father in the kitchen, who was hanging up, rudely, on someone. Probably some important guy she'd have to call back and apologize to to get the job flowing again, what else was new?

"What is it, cub?" Victor Creed turned his head to look down at the girl. Elizabeth jumped up on a stool to get up closer to her fathers face.

"I need you ta pull out my tooth!" Elizabeth exclaimed loudly, pointing at her mouth again and giving her father her best puppy dog eyes.

Birdy laughed at her enthusiasm, gleaming over at Victor. His face had turned blank, staring down at Lizzie. Birdy jumped in to explain, sometimes current fancies with their daughter were lost on him. He'd lived too long to catch onto everything.

"She means for the tooth-fairy," Birdy laughed whimsically. She reached down and fixed one of Elizabeth'a ponytails that had fallen loose in all her excitement.

"Please! You gotta take it out Papa!"

She glanced up to take in his no doubt, hilarious reaction.

That was not what she saw. Birdy didn't get it. Her forehead creased as Victor stepped back away from Elizabeth. His eyes had gone blank. It reminded her of what they'd use to look like when she'd blast him telepathically to sort out his head.

His eyes slowly seemed to focus on what was going around him, and there was a hard edge to the brown. Victor's jaw was clenched tight too, and she could see the muscles clenching over and over again.

"Victor?" She called softly, glancing down to see his claws lengthening, curling to dig into his palms. She glanced at their child nervously, hoping she wouldn't see the red staining the edge of his palms.

"I mean my _tooth_! Ta pull it out!" Lizzie had kept explaining, mistaking Victors silence and bunching muscles for confusion. It just made it worse and he stepped back away from the both of them.

Victor snarled nastily, and it shocked the little girl. As much of a violent, aggressive man as her father may be... he'd never so much as raised his voice against Elizabeth.

So the little girl couldn't understand. To Lizzie, she was getting in trouble like when her Mother yelled at her. To Birdy... who'd had plenty of yelling sent her way... he was... scared? Or worried?

"I meant for the tooth fairy…" The little girl muttered in an apology.

Her daughters words suddenly clicked into place, the _tooth_ fairy... and it shook Birdy. Oh, God… Shit…. How did she fix this? Um...

She looked at Victor, who was beginning to growl a bit and then, to the previously excited little girl, who was beginning to look scared.

"He means you can't do it that way!" She fumbled, and tried to recover. Birdy still wanted her little girl to have this fun experience... just, maybe not how they should have talked to Victor about it. She just hadn't thought about it….! "You have to do the work yourself or the tooth fairy won't come!"

Apparently the lie was a convincing one. Somehow. Elizabeth turned to look at Birdy, thinking on it and then nodded slowly.

"I get it Mama... I can' cheat!"

"Uh, exactly, yeah, exactly right," Birdy nodded quickly, sweeping her bangs out of her face.

Renewed with purpose the little girl clambered down the stool and raced out of the room. Probably to do something destructive and try to tug her tooth out. Birdy was fine with that just now, her father could do many more somethings that were much more destructive. One fire at a time.

Now that Elizabeth was out of the room, and distracted with her new fun, Birdy turned over cautiously to Victor. The pained, blank look had left his Amber-brown eyes and now he just looked pissed. She could see the rage clouding them, his breathing was shortened as he seethed in the anger.

Yeah... she was used to this rage. But it couldn't do anything now but make her feel awful. She'd seen glimpses of... all that happened to him. Of the little blonde boy, an astral project she'd seen running through a hallway, leading her to Victor's momentary torture, or staring at her curiously, as if asking why she bothered to try to wrangle down the haunted memory. Sometimes he'd, in rare instances, speak to Birdy, asking her why she didn't want to hurt him. But she always knew it was the younger version, of her often terrifying, lover.

Her time to think of what to do was up, as Victor loomed over her, eyes blazing with unnatural rage.

"What the _**fuck**_ was all that about?" The large feral snarled defensively, and leaned over her threateningly.

"It's... I'm sorry, Victor," She started, swallowing before she reached out and grasped his forearm. He snarled a little again, but he didn't shake her off like he would have once. "Her baby teeth are loose... the tooth fairy is... uh, well an urban myth, a fairy comes and give money for your teeth to turn into fairy dust."

He growled lowly, viciously, she could see the calculating thoughts behind his eyes. What he was thinking? She didn't want to tune in and find out. It was probably what he wanted to tear apart, or kill, more likely. As long as Birdy wasn't on that list. She hadn't had to worry about that sort of stuff in awhile now… but she never completely forgot that Victor was a man of violence, and that it was his first instinct to act upon those urges.

"It's not hurting her. At. **All**." She tried to assure him, figure out what might defuse him. It was her first instinct to say, after all, teeth coming out was nothing but pain to him. Victor sniffed once to check her scent, and looked her face over. Apparently he was checking if she was lying…

Birdy wasn't, though, she'd seen, in his mind, what his father did because of Victor's mutant powers, because of his fangs and claws. She'd seen the projection in his mind once, of him shoved against an old cellar wall, crying as his father tore his teeth out viciously with pliers, again and again, despite the young boys desperate pleas. She'd nearly thrown up afterward, but had been preoccupied with an unhappy Victor because she'd seen something that apparently crossed the line.

But he was so protective of their daughter. He constantly made sure nothing like that, or anything they'd seen in this world, happened to her. This was a sensitive subject, and Birdy and Elizabeth had thrown it at him in a very insensitive way.

"I know.. Victor," She urged softer, trying to move her arm a little higher without him pulling away. "I know," She muttered, Birdy understood his fear.

Victor growled warningly at her. He didn't like, or tolerate, talking about it. Looking weak to anyone, he couldn't understand that he didn't need to _worry_ about that with her anymore. But Birdy pointed out the doorway the blonde little girl had bobbed out of to remind him of his present.

"It's _normal_ , and she'll love it. It's a..." Game was a bad word to use... it'd only pull him further back to his childhood with his father. "...way to make it fun for her. She's already happy with the idea of it..." She looked at him, wishing he'd say something. He wasn't a Chatty Cathy but... it'd be good to say anything so she could stop babbling on.

Finally, they seemed to pass the point where he was going to snap and lose control of himself. That was the last thing she needed with Elizabeth just down the hall somewhere. Victor turned away from her a bit, his shoulders seemed to drop though.

"A fairy?" He snorted, finally rolling his neck. "How stupid are kids?"

Birdy let out a breath, shoulders relaxing. He let it go, was making a joke out of it now and was hopefully letting the memories go too. Victor couldn't usually deny something that made Elizabeth very happy. Still, his hands were still tightened, his claws still just a little too long. But his shoulders had loosened and the haunted look at disappeared entirely.

She was going to mark this in the victory column!

"It's a stupid idea," He grumbled again.

"You need a massage," Birdy coaxed, and slipped around him. He let her, thankfully, and dropped down on the stool. "So what shmuck did you hang up on?" She teased him, trying to distract him with work for a little bit.

He grumbled about the guy and after Birdy did her best to loosen his knotted up muscles, she rested her head between his broad shoulders. They'd be alright... Victor would be alright. But apparently Birdy would have to take on the mantle of tooth fairy.

It was alright, they'd have fun with it, and she'd try to make sure Victor didn't have to see any of the teeth.


	5. Cravings

Author's Note\- Oh this one was so much fun! It might be my favorite along with the first prompt on this fic. The first one from Victor's point of view I believe except for that one flashback. I think it's pretty in character too, but we'll see what all of you think! It's a fun Victor/Birdy moment though! :D Thanks for reading!

* * *

"There is **no** way in high hell I'm helping you with _this_!"

"Birdy," He growled loudly, hand shooting out to squeeze around her arm and yank her around to face him. When he was satisfied she wasn't going anywhere he loosened his grip and she only took another step back. Girl was lucky. He'd barely resisted grabbing her by the neck and squeezing the life out of her. Or at least until she got scared enough to learn a god damn lesson.

 _ **Nobody**_ got to talk to him like that, Birdy needed to learn she wasn't an exception.

"Don't ' _Birdy'_ me! I mean it! How do you expect **me** to not starve to death?"

"This is perfectly good meat," He said, the growl still evident in his chest.

Fucking woman. He went out, only because he'd felt like a run through the woods mind, and found the deer on his way. He had a nice hunt of it, with all the simplicity of a natural hunt, no outside sources. Just the hunter and the prey, fighting for dominance.

He brought his prize home, feeling relaxed for once, and offered to feed her too. Then she starts screeching. Fine, she didn't have to do it, Victor probably had more experience with deers than she did. He was starting to hate this century more and more. Nobody knew even the most basic of skills. Everything was processed and on demand at the last minute.

Besides Birdy's stupid screeching, it had been a better day than most for Victor Creed. He'd come home, the carcass over his shoulders, feeling as relaxed as when Birdy hit him with that Glow.

Maybe he didn't need the broad around after all. It was an appealing thought, not that he was particularly bothered by Birdy as much these days. Except for times like right now when she was mouthing off and screeching her fool head, attacking his sensitive hearing. The point was, Victor preferred a life where he didn't need anybody for anything. It was the best way to be.

But he couldn't fool himself beyond some simple ideas. Birdy blasted him good yesterday, and he hadn't done very much the rest of the night or today. He'd stayed in his large estate in Vancouver and taken some to himself.

A quick run in the forest, losing himself in his primal senses, didn't compensate for the Glow, and Victor knew he needed it by now. He _craved_ it. All it took was for his head to get switched over by the simplest thing.

It could be anything. A certain scent, a familiar scene, the way somebody spoke. The feeling of certain things. Sometimes a job would do it, some small insignificant detail would catch something in his scrambled mind from his past. Something real bad…. that tormented him without his permission or real knowledge.

Then Victor would lose it.

He'd be gone, snapped. The rage would blind him… envelope him… and he didn't know a way to stop it. He folded to its will and his mind went into a foggy red haze of anger and hatred that Sabretooth knew all too well.

But ever since this girl showed up trying to do him in and had hit him with that Glow… things changed. She calmed him with it, no matter how severe, how much pain or anger he felt, one blast of her telepathy and his mind was under his own control again.

Victor wasn't used to relying on anything that wasn't his own head or claws. But when his mind was failing him at times, times he didn't deem appropriate, it was hard not to. But as Victor looked down over the tiny little blonde, dress clinging to her curves, and her ponytail swinging over her shoulder as she pressed her manicured fingers to her nose, her head tilted just a bit to reveal more of her neck as she inspected his kill… he realized he did. He relied on this tiny frail more than he admitted.

Victor shook his thoughts, no longer pleased with the direction they'd taken him and returned to the task.

The simple task, one that he'd been doing all his life. A kill that was necessary, for food, for survival. That's what they all boiled down to really, well some were just fun. But out in the forest was the circle of life if you got all spiritual or whatever nonsense. It was the natural order of things in the world. Victor certainly embraced that. You hunted and killed, you ate and lived, and bigger predators did the same to you.

Unless of course you were that top predator. With nobody hanging over your head who was bigger or badder than he. Just the way Victor liked it. But even in this… Victor's human side reared its ugly head too often for it to work that simple all the time. After so long of living, being the top predator that didn't fall to any occasion… eh, centuries built up, and it was a long time to compile in a mind. A lot of shit to pass through. That's always where she snuck into….

As he got past the skin that damn woman started in again.

"Eghhhh!" Birdy squealed, knocking him from the peaceful state he'd settled himself in. Victor cringed, wincing at the shrill noise she was making while running clear across the kitchen. He groaned, aggravated, rolling his eyes before he went back to his work.

"I don' believe ya ever killed a soul Birdy," He rumbled, continuing to skin the deer currently sitting on his kitchen island. She'd come to him to kill him, take him out like all the other halfwits tried. He thought it was funny, really, even if they had to pay for their attempts. Maybe that's another reason he let her live, besides the Glow. Victor doubted it, but maybe.

"Hey, that's how I met you!" She replied shortly, face pinching in disgust as he moved the carcass over to its other side.

He laughed at her, short and dismissive. "Ya weren't in my league then, ya ain't now, frail."

She made a whining noise again before shouting out. "Well it's different when it's _Bambi_ you killed!"

Victor threw his head back and laughed boisterously. Of all the things this frail had seen him do, all she'd been part of him killing. _Bambi_ … this frail was something alright. Sometimes it had nothing to do with the Glow at all, sometimes she surprised him in other ways. Sometimes he hated it, sometimes he tolerated it… and just every once in awhile she was alright.

"It's venison, and it'll taste damn good girl."

"Well I've never eaten venison…." Birdy said, putting her hands on her hips while she turned her head to glance over the sink. "I'll do the dishes while you..." She added, making a sweeping motion with her hands at his work.

"I thought ya did 'em yesterday," He said returning his eyes back to the work before him.

"Dishes happen everyday," She informed him. Victor rolled his eyes, dishes be damned, she was the one who stacked em all up, insisted they use them for whatever concoction she'd decided on that day.

"Well today we'll be eatin' venision," He repeated, looking at all the meat he was craving a nice hunk of it now. He looked it over before sinking back into the work, as close to peace as Victor could get. Birdy said something or other that he didn't bother to listen to.

But when she stopped yapping and sunk into her cleaning, Victor found her soft humming wasn't too bad to work to.


	6. An Unexpected Phantom

Author's Note- This is a small thing I worked on in another project as a memory of Victor's, so the tense might seem a little odd, but I liked it enough I think it belongs here too, since it has to do with Birdy and he! Hopefully I kept Victor mostly in character in this one-shot! This would follow shortly after Birdy's death in Death Hunt #4

* * *

His boots marched wet against the front walkway. Vancouver, it just loved to rain here. Part of why he'd picked there to settle down his little security place. Where he could go and relax and not much of anybody knew it was him who lived there.

It'd been a good month or more since he'd been back here. Victor lost track, but it had been at least that many days. No evidence of anybody coming round sine he last blew through here.

The wall around his property was still broken down in one spot where he'd chased Birdy… when she was stupid enough to finally betray him. Over something stupid Victor had no doubt. She'd sure as hell called in and let some guys through his security system. Of course Victor had heard them approaching despite the girl's best attempts and nearly fought them off.

It didn't matter now, all involved in the little charade to try and force him into killing Mystique were pushing up daisies, and Graydon had been revealed to be behind it, wanting his parents dead. Much to Birdy's shock, the dumb bitch. Couldn't even see that coming, couldn't see the obvious deceit. Maybe that's why at the time he'd forgiven her for trying to detain him with some stunt long enough to try and escape. Maybe it had been the Glow. Probably was, he'd been so reliant on the blasted thing.

That was over now, though, after this long suffering without it. After all he'd done to get over the need he still had for it, Victor deemed that he no longer needed to think about it.

He moved past the grounds, his sharp yes spotting there was still blood soaked through the sidewalk where those ninja's had attacked him, all of which he took care of at the time. Victor stepped through the garage entrance, figuring that his security system was still off inside too. He paid so much for the god damn thing, he'd probably have to put even more money into fixing it. Maybe it was still just deactivated though. He wasn't in the mood for dodging his own equipment.

His dark eyes roamed over the different cars he had stowed here. All his prizes from one thing or the next. The red convertible and the bike were gone, of course, crashed on the bridge from his chase months ago. He'd liked that bike... was pretty sure he heard news they dredged the red convertible from the river weeks ago.

A low growl rumbled through his chest as he looked over at all the tires still slashed.

Birdy…. stupid girl.

She'd gotten what was coming to her… when his son stabbed her. Always sticking her nose where it didn't belong. He bet she only wished she hadn't fought Victor on killing that lil'sonvabitch when he'd wanted to. For her attempts to save the little brat, he turned around and killed her. Graydon was a thorn in Victor's side since, that was for sure. Cold, though, like Victor. He'd killed Birdy for no other reason than that he **thought** it would bother Victor. As if it would have dealt some blow of any meaning to the feral mutant.

That boy had been mistaken, Victor cared for _no one_ enough that it would hurt him. Only one he cared for was himself. He moved past the evidence of Birdy's brief getaway attempt, into the door that connected the garage and the foyer on the other side.

He took in a deep breath of his home, the first time he'd really been in any condition to get back to his routine. The first time he had control over his head in a long, long while, actually. Victor had all the control again, and it felt good. He fully intended to find some satisfying job to do, something with a decent hunt to it, maybe someone who'd try and fight him, so he could really enjoy it. What a better way to let off the stress from recently and relax?

But first, food. He was hungry and the crap he'd been eating lately was leaving him salivating for a good meal.

After a few minutes, Victor gave him with the fridge, not sure why he'd expected anything edible to still be good after he'd been away. Nobody else was here now but him, and all the food had expired and not been refilled. There was a creak near the cabinets and he whipped around, eyes darting around for something.

A vagrant, some bum thinking they could intrude on his place while he was out maybe? Those were the most thought out options, but somewhere in his instincts he'd expected to see a determined scowl, small hands moving quickly at some pile of dishes or some other chore. His mind played a trick on him, maybe, but he'd half expected to see a bright smile aimed suspiciously towards him and the smell of something hot and fresh pulled from the oven.

Victor growled deeply in his chest and ignored the phantom, opening the cabinet to find a mouse was the cause of his creak. His eyes darkened and he plucked the rodent from its perched and disposed of it.

Fuck the food, he was hardly even hungry. He'd go out later, or call something in and have fun scaring the shit out of whoever delivered it and had to walk across his blood stained yard. He chuckled mirthlessly to himself, changed direction and walked across the house. He'd go look at those jobs, like he'd been planning on.

Victor stopped in the den, looking over the dead fireplace and deciding that could be a good place to start. A warm fire would be a welcoming sight. He looked around for the wood he kept indoors, away from the pile in the shed out back he chopped up whenever a tree blew over in a storm. It turned out there was still plenty inside, and he got busy stuffing newspapers and started a small flame in the kindling.

Just as the fire finally started to roar, Victor could feel his shoulders relaxed more, the rustle of pages made him growl.

"Would ya…" He stopped his own voice, as he'd spun up to his full height to yell at the offending woman for interrupting his peace with her silly magazines and childish giggles over their contents. But there was nobody stretched out on his lounge, or any of the plush furniture, just an old magazine that had been gathering dust.

Victor's growl was deep in his chest again, and he marched over to it and with one quick toss it landed in the already roaring fire. He stood and watched the pages of the obnoxious pink cover curl into grey ashes.

Victor let out a gruff scowl and left the fire to itself as he decided he'd been side tracked long enough. It was time to get to his work, and he could straighten the rest of his house out the way he liked it after. Maybe he'd hire a maid or a cleaning crew to come take care of it for him. Clear everything out…. of course he didn't trust nobody near his things, so maybe he'd just do it later.

After a good job. Somebody tricky to find and a rewarding kill. That's all he needed to shake off the last few months.

His office was sat back in the corner of the house, as far away from the other noises of the house as he could place it. Somewhere he could sit and focus in the quiet. Victor felt that would certainly be the case now.

Away from all the distractions around his home, or the evidence of the last occupant. His office was his alone, and he'd hardly tolerated visitors when he was focused on something. He moved around the room, finding that nothing had been misplaced. Good.

Victor circled around his desk once, inspecting it before he dropped down in the plush leather chair and leaned back in it for a moment. He closed his stormy eyes and focused on the emptiness in his head, the lack of noises in his house to distract him. It was set up far back on the property, away from the cities constant noises, or the highways rush of cars and people late for one thing or another. No distractions.

Just the noises of the woods behind it were heard, and sometimes in the rain not even that…

 _'You just gonna snooze and let me do all the boring work_ again _Boss?'_

"Shut yer yap!" He snapped suddenly, eyes snapping open with ire. But Victor found nothing in front of him. Certainly not a short blonde swiping through the paperwork that was scattered around his desk, trying to organize what he didn't want moved around.

Victor snarled then, his large hands wrapped around the front of the oak desk and he threw all his weight into tossing it across the room. His claws raking against the wood as it flew, sending a shower of splinters, papers, and computer parts over his head and across the carpeted office. He took in a sharp breath, angry his peace kept being interrupted by this ghost.

There was no reason for it!

Victor snarled to the emptiness of his house again, before taking off from the room. He bounded around the banister staircase, ignoring the trophies of hunts lining his walls, or the blood stains on his carpet where he'd fought people off.

He'd take care of her. Victor would take care of her right now alright. A few large steps later and Victor was past his bedroom and the main bathroom, and into the slightly smaller room in an instant. He'd get rid of every single thing in this house until it was _his_ again. Burn it all and get some _god damn_ **peace**.

Victor stilled, though, as his boots hit the carpet inside the doorway, overwhelmed momentarily. Without knowing it, his eyes slipped close at the still fresh scent clinging to everything in this room. The rest of the house had a ghost in it, but this was more than a ghost. Birdy had spent so long here… that even long after she was gone, he could smell the sweet flowery shit that she always wore, and the natural airy scent that belonged to her.

Victor's dark eyes traveled the room for a moment, and he moved on to empty out a dresser drawer. Most of them were torn open, where she'd done a rushed packing job. Back when she'd tried to escape and ratted him out to that punk who turned out to be working for Graydon. His claws curled inward and Victor finally felt the blow that had never come before.

That she'd packed up intent to leave, that should make it easier to throw all this out. To burn it and have the phantom hanging around go with it. So he could have his peace. But that ease did not come. When he'd stepped past her dead body and told himself that she'd meant nothing to him... proved to the little brat that he'd done nothing to Victor. That the dead, lifeless girl beneath him had meant little to him, she'd betrayed him anyways, wanted out apparently, and was more trouble than she was worth.

He'd told himself Graydon had done him a **favor** , really. Victor insisted that the following time had just been his trouble with his mind without the Glow to help him soothe the berserker rages that kept claiming all his natural reactions and thoughts.

But he'd expected that to be it. He hadn't expected to have her haunt him in his own home... for him to hesitate in to get rid of all this. Why? It only caused him trouble. But… if he burned it now, where would her scent linger? She was gone now, in the ground somewhere probably. Victor didn't even know, so consumed by his rampaging mind, as he worked to fix it on his own without Birdy's powers to do it for him.

It had just been the inconvenience of not having the Glow he said. Why else would he linger anyways? Death was an absolute in his life, people died around him constantly and even when it wasn't his doing... he never aged and they all did.

Yet Birdy's death was clinging to him, like some sickness. With a frustrated howl Victor turned from the room and slammed the door shut hard enough the hinges pulled from the wood. He didn't bother with the staircase, or going out the door, or risk finding some other demon following him. Instead he threw open a window and leapt from the top floor, and landed with ease on the ground.

He ignored the cars, with the tires she'd slashed, and made his way away from his Vancouver home. He felt like a drink, a drink and somebody who was drunk enough to find a fight with Victor to seem like a smart idea long enough for him to tear them into tiny, bloody pieces for their offense. He'd deal with the house later… or not at all, he had other places around the country. Maybe one of those were a better answer.


	7. Don't Doubt It

Author's Note\- What is this place? FanFiction? Why haven't I posted here in so long! Well, I've been busy and the tiny bit of time I do have has been dedicated to writing the last chapter of my other fic with Vic in it. So there's that, I actually wrote this elsewhere but it was so good I figured I'd share it with the other, very few, fans of Victor and Birdy! I do love how this turned out :3 Thanks for reading! :-)

* * *

Victor grumbled as he threw the midnight black suit jacket down onto the hotel bed on top of the untouched tie. There, a little better. He stretched his arms out, finding the vest and shirt were still too tight. He kept trying to pull his shoulder back and then pull it back down to his side, but the fabric didn't get less tight. He swore to god, if this paycheck wasn't so big and the job not so juicy, he'd have told this schmuck to stick it where the sun don't shine.

Gotta be dressed, what was this anyways? A hit or a recital? Not that he didn't wear tux's sometimes. But he did it when he _wanted_ to, and they were custom made and not bought short notice. For reasons just like this. He felt constrained enough being in the middle of Florence. He hated cities, and he didn't care for Italy either. Bunch of Italian food he couldn't stand, more people he didn't like in a language he'd never bothered to pick much up of.

He took a deep breath in and pushed away the sudden urge to call for Birdy. Pushed away the urge to easily solve his approaching bad mood. Victor didn't need the Glow for every minor annoyance. It annoyed him how much he was beginning to rely on it. He wouldn't at **all** , if he could find some other way to control the animal urges that took over.

Or the length of them, anyways. Victor didn't mind, and never had minded, being an animal. He enjoyed it, there was true power in it. There was strength and the ability to do whatever it took. It was natural, too. As much part of him as these claws were, and he had absolutely no qualms with that.

No… it was the bloodlust, the completely feral side, he supposed was the problem. Made him go stupid, and he'd had centuries of being an animal and enjoying the darker side of the world. But this was something different. Something had fractured within him in the last ten years. When he'd left Stryker and that island, when the aftermath of all that finally came out years later… when he found out what became of his brother...something snapped in him, something mindless.

Victor didn't know what it was, but he'd gone down a path where he couldn't pull up his own thoughts. Even his animalistic side had thoughts. Enjoyable ones at that. This wasn't the same, once in it, he couldn't get out of the daze of the bloodlust and the rage. It took over, created a new sort of animal within him… and he wasn't about to let _nothing_ control him. Even some part of himself he enjoyed.

But it was a tricky thing, to get rid of something so integral to yourself, that you wanted so badly. That's where Birdy came in. He'd never been able to, he would go through periods of it being gone, and he'd be fine. Then something would set him off, he'd go into a rage… and the things that set off his inner demon got more and more frequent.

Least until he found her anyways, she was able to push it away when it became too much for him to control. He hadn't felt as much himself in years. He still did the things he liked, still was able to embrace the animal lurking in him, but if his rage tried to control him, she just pushed it all away.

Had been for awhile now, and although it irritated him that he relied on her, these… new developments confused him. Victor was a black and white person, he didn't need to bother with confusion. He knew what was what, and he knew how things were. Confusion didn't enter into the equation.

But he was wondering a few things lately. For instance, why he brought her to this job. Why bring her all the way to Italy with him? A few months ago he would have left her in Vancouver, done his business, and come back. Instead she was out buying some sort of dress for whatever function this dumb client insisted he attend.

Victor looked out over the balcony and stepped out of it to try for some sort of fresh air. Not that he'd find any here. Damn city. He wanted out of here, back to his house in Vancouver or maybe the one in Denver. Get away from people, the fumes, and noise… and mostly this stuffy suit. He reached up and undid the collar button, wanting to be able to breath properly again.

Footsteps caught his ears and he turned to lean against the balcony and look into the room. He could smell her scent now, and found it pleasantly distracting from the fumes so close to the highway.

With the beep of the hotel key, Birdy made her entrance with a few bags. Victor watched her silently from the balcony as she undid her unnecessarily strappy shoes and threw the stuff on the bed.

"I'm back Mister Creed!" She called, although she apparently hadn't seen him out here.

He snorted silently, how was she so slow anyhow? Woman was psychic enough to figure out his head, and yet she wasn't _ever_ able to pay attention to her surroundings. Wasn't she able to sense people? He'd known other psychics in his years, and they all could.

She just didn't pay attention, he decided, and shook his head. Eventually when she'd finished playing around in her different bags and pulling fabrics and whatever other girlish crap out onto the bed; she finally looked around and spotted him out here.

"Oh there you are."

She smiled at him and Victor raised an eyebrow. What was she looking? Cause he'd been standing here the entire time waiting to see how long it'd take her to figure that out.

"Oh and dressed already too. Oh, wait, stay there, okay? I'll be right back!" She said, waving her hands and scooping the stuff she'd just taken the time to lay out, into her arms and running off into the other room.

Victor chuckled to himself. She just wasted all that time to look over some outfit and now she threw it all in a pile and ran off. She was more excited than him about this trip, ten fold. She'd lit up like a Christmas tree when he'd abruptly told her to pack something the day before.

He'd known she would be; and Victor wondered in this rare contemplative mood, if that was why he took her along. Probably, Birdy did do a lot for him, he knew that. Still, that wasn't like him. He was _Sabretooth_ , he didn't care about that. He didn't care about people, he didn't care what would excite them, they didn't need to matter anymore… he just didn't want to hear her pouting later. That was all. She could make a real racket sometimes.

He shook himself and stepped in off the balcony. He could hear stuff being tossed around softly and her steps back and forth, but tuned them out to go for some of the scotch left out in the room. What was she doing anyways? One thing was for sure, she couldn't figure herself out long enough for him to figure her out either.

The door from the other room flew open suddenly and Victor paused from his drink for a moment from the insulting sound of the knob against the plaster. Out she popped, dressed in a red number and a shawl of some sort.

"Well, how do I look?" Birdy sang, twirling around like she was in a show. Victor snorted, amused at the scent of raw excitement mingling in with the flowery notes clinging to her skin.

"Like the prime article, girl," He found himself saying with a smile. Why? He had no clue. Whatever, she'd asked, he'd answered. No need to deny she looked good in the dress she'd just gone and spent hours finding. Sides, why wouldn't he? If Victor Creed was taking someone to some shindig they would be the creme of the crop.

His eyes lingered; drink forgotten halfway to his lips, and she seemed pleased. So kill him, he liked red and she looked good in it.

"I gotta say, you're looking rather good yourself."

He shrugged, reminded of the damn suit and threw back the last of the scotch he'd poured out. Birdy got a look on her that told him he ought to avoid the conversation and he decided to dodge the bullet and turn back out to the balcony.

"Why do you do that?" She called out after him, and he let out a low rumbled sigh. She was moving out towards him too, into the already too small space.

"Didn' do a thing," He growled warningly. He wasn't in the mood to be tested.

"Victor," Birdy sighed as she settled next to him, leaning her frame against the railings. He gave her a dark look before his eyes went back to the cars passing by below. They sat in silence for awhile and he couldn't pinpoint why he was so suddenly agitated.

Birdy shifted next to him and he felt her move closer before she reached out and slid her hand next to his, where it was set on top of the railing. He looked down at her hand as she slowly ran her fingers along his, up over his claws and back down them again. He watched their hands carefully and didn't know what to think of the strange motion as she slid her painted fingertips in-between his fingers. But Victor didn't move his hand to let her.

She didn't move her hand despite the silent rejection.

"Can't I say you look good?" She asked bravely, and when he slid his dark eyes to look at her he could see her chin jutted up, eyes fastened firmly on his. He looked away quickly before snorting.

"I mean that, Victor," She said, and her voice was firm, scent just as solid and sure. She slid her hand back but only to cross her arms under her chest and stand up straighter, try and get some height on him. Her scent solidified again, confident and brazen. Victor raised an eyebrow at the scent and turned his body so he could lean his elbow on the balcony and face the frail.

He locked eyes with her, making sure she was paying real close attention to him before she received her _only_ warning.

"Not if yer wantin' ta be my _employee_ still," He spoke, a low but steady growl in his voice. "Ya understand it, frail?"

She stared back at him silently, and he sneered before turning back to look out over the city. Girl didn't know what she was asking for. Besides, he needed that glow and this wasn't an arrangement to interrupt or make more difficult because she wanted to go and get sentimental. He didn't want, or need, to hear any of this shit.

Just when he thought she'd settled down, Birdy aggravated him by shoving her finger into his shoulder.

"First off, your morals? They are so fucked," Birdy declared and his head snapped around to growl at her. The hell did that mean anyways? He had no morals! He was quite fine with that too, morals got in the way of being and doing whatever you pleased. Useless, human sentiment. "You don't get to be a _mercenary_ and then have some ridiculous work related rules!"

He snarled lightly, not liking the tone, or the fact she was telling him what he should or shouldn't do. Only he made up what he did or didn't do. She was being a little too brazen now.

"Second," She continued, and he stood up from where he'd been leaning to tower over her so she'd quit before she got his ire. Before that could happen, he watched Birdy's assertive stance, shoulders back, chin up, nose out, soften and lower. Victor settled back himself, the challenge she was trying to pose gone, and so he let it go.

Her voice softened as she continued.

"Victor…" She looked away from him over the city before she suddenly stepped up close to him, tilting her head back to catch his face again. The sun was low in the sky, now, and he was distracted with the way it glinted off the golden strands pinned around her face. "I want more. I don't want it to be _only_ my boss here with me…"

The way she was looking up at him now, the soft, earnest look on her soft features. At **_him_**? He wanted to listen. "Ya don' know what yer talkin' about." Victor dismissed, but before he could step back Birdy reached out and grabbed one of his hands.

"I really do," She urged, quickly slipping her fingers between his. Victor's fingers twitched, suddenly focused on where his claws were so he didn't scrape her."And I know you do," She muttered, catching his illuminated eyes, and before Victor really knew what was going on she'd leaned up on her toes and kissed him. He stared, shocked, at her for a second before he pulled away from her lips.

"What the hell are you doin' Birdy?" He barely managed to growl, leaning away with restraint he didn't ever have.

"What I want, what _you_ want," She explained matter of factly. Victor stared at her puzzled. Her voice was still soft, and that wasn't like Birdy. She was usually telling him what she thought of this and that louder. "Don't doubt that Victor. If there's anyone who knows what they're looking at… don't you think it's me?"

He couldn't tell her she was wrong… and he'd never say that aloud, but he couldn't deny that. She'd been so far into his head, lived with him for so long and was still there…

"Please," She muttered, blue eyes set on his with… hope? Strange, insane woman. But he just watched her set her small hand on his shirt and he decided he didn't care. What did he care for!? He did what he wanted anyways! He didn't abide by any rules… not even his own. Just this once.

So Victor wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled Birdy in close so he could lean down and kiss her firmly. She leaned into him instantly, wrapping her hand on his arm and he made sure he didn't clutch the fabric on her back too tightly with his claws. He couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't done this before as he kissed her strongly. She smelled so good this close up. It was hard to think around.

She breathed in sharply suddenly and Victor grinned down at her, carefree, as he swept Birdy and her red gettup up in his arms to take her inside with him. Away from the balcony with it's noises and distractions.


End file.
